BRIGHT BEWILDERING GREEN

In the book Bright Bewildering Green, the author, local man John Hughes, describes growing up on a farm in Cladymore in the 1950s. Orphaned at an early age, John hankered after a new life and moved to England to find it at the age of fifteen.

"When we arrived in England I realised that I was following in the footsteps of many Irish people who had left home through strife and poverty, in search of a better life...I was here now and determined to succeed. My exploration of the locality was as fascinating as my childhood discovery of snow. People, shops, houses, buses, cars and pets, all standing, running, moving, working, and so greatly different to anything I had ever seen...Everyone welcomed me but repeatedly warned me with an air of experienced superiority that this was not rural Ireland".

Bright Bewildering Green by John Hughes was published by The Lilliput Press, Dublin in 1991.